The Ultimate 1911 for Carry

The Ultimate 1911 for EDC (Every Day Carry) has got to be the classic Light Weight Commander.

Those simple wood grips, with the simple blacked out finish… No Ramp rear sight… This is an example of LW Commander Perfection. It doesn’t get any better than this.

To me, this is the just the ideal 1911, period. It’s the most flexible, capable 1911 you can get. When you step away from this pattern, you step into more specialized, more limited areas. You can easily rock an LW Commander in an IDPA match, and win it. You can easily take that same gun and wear it for week concealed. You go to a 5″ Government if you like. And that’s fine. But packing it concealed every day gets to be tedious. Especially if you are getting in and out of vehicles all week. You can go shorter than 4″ if you like… makes packing it much easier, sure. But you sacrifice reliability in a way that I just find to be unacceptable. Maybe you don’t need a reliable sidearm. Huh… Well, someone is buying Kimber Ultras. No… to me, the LW Commander just has it all. The question though is WHICH light weight Commander.

Ruger is all over the place with their new LW Commander. No, it’s not that I’ve been a Ruger Fan Boy lately, it’s just that Ruger is really “Doing It Right” lately. (Granted – their new “Custom” LCP should be an LC9S, but that’s another topic) I really like what Ruger has been doing lately. 5 years ago – I may have had to hurt you should you have suggested that I’d be saying that. But it’s true. Ruger is making some fine products, and their 1911’s are getting better. If anything, they are really worth taking a look at.

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8 thoughts on “The Ultimate 1911 for Carry”

LW Commanders are good guns, no doubt, but I think I’m going to stick with my Springfield Range Officer Compact. It’s a CCO-size, i.e. 4″ barrel on an aluminum Officer’s size frame. Reason being I’m so skinny I make a string bean look overweight, so a Government or Commander size frame prints when I wear anything less bulky than a puffy winter jacket or a shirt that’s two sizes too big.

Yeah I keep thinking I need to get another Commander-size pistol for carry, but I’m thinking more of a Combat Commander — probably the Colt 1991 series. I inspected one at a LGS recently and it looked really good — of course now it’s gone.

But then, I tend to carry a revolver so who knows. My Government model serves as a HD pistol — though I do carry it sometimes in cooler months.

I was surprised when Springfield announced the new Range Officer Champion at Shot Show 2015. It looks like a good deal except for the fiber-optic front sight. May have to find a store or show to look at both the Ruger and the Champion.

I like the scandium frame two tone bobtail S&W E-series. Great looking blaster and oh my lord does it fit well in the hand. My issue is I have an M&P shield and two 5in sig 1911’s (nickel rail and a tacops) so I don’t “need” it.

After years of toying around the idea of getting a 1911 I finally got around to going through many articles, ratings, rants-n-raves, the do’s and dont’s of owning one. Of all the reviews floating around yours was the most down to earth and honest. Taking that read knowledge from your years of seat time with them I went shopping with confidence and picked up my first (entry level) 1911, yesterday. Of all the super fine examples I pervertedly molested and scoured over I settled on the Kimber Pro Carry 2 in .45 auto, two tone black upper with silver bottom and wood grips. Fit, finish, function, size, and trigger…it was all there. My only gripes is that the sights are just yuck, plain black. Knowing the world is not going to end with that I knew the sights were easily changed so it wasn’t a bad selling point. Secondly it only came with one mag, again not a huge deal breaker, just that one would expect at least two…meh, life goes on. As you and many others pointed out you must marry it, I get it now and its understood. Having plugged away at autos for years I kept telling myself to hell with the 1911, to old of a design, a grandpa hand gun, but boy I couldn’t have been more wrong after firing one not long ago. With eyes now wide open my views of a 1911 is different, there is no “instant on” that you can get with modern day autos but I knew this going in and appreciate that, really do, and to that I had to eat crow. The moves must be precise and intentional, to me I love that level of respect it commands.